The Insecurity Experience Scale Methodology
In 2015, Indigenous Peoples representatives from Latin America attended a meeting called "Pueblos Indígenas e Indicadores de Seguridad Alimentaria" at FAO headquarters. The meeting, organized by the FAO's Indigenous Peoples Unit and the Statistics Division, aimed to exchange knowledge on food security and introduce new measurement methods. One such method introduced was the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES), which consists of eight questions tailored to each Indigenous Peoples' community. This user-friendly methodology enables Indigenous leaders to assess food access within their communities and supports the collection of disaggregated data for national statistical services. It also promotes the formulation of effective development policies.
Following the workshop, some participants returned to their communities equipped with practical skills and trained other Indigenous Peoples to conduct pilot surveys for collecting their own food security data. FAO experts continues to assist Indigenous Peoples' communities in gathering and analyzing their food insecurity data, facilitating comparisons among different communities.
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Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) in Indigenous Peoples´ territories
The FIES is an effective, affordable and easy-to-report tool that combines other metrics, offering member countries the opportunity to measure food insecurity experienced by people and households. It provides countries with actionable information that policy makers can use to identify vulnerable population groups and guide policy interventions.
Latin America and the Caribbean
In this context, FAO's regional initiative 1, Sustainable food systems to provide healthy diets for all, considers the need to prioritize the statistical issue in a practical way by conducting pilot studies to explore the implementation and adaptability of the FIES scale in Indigenous Peoples’ territories in Latin America and the Caribbean to generate information on the characteristics of food insecurity and how people perceive it.
Based on the experience of Indigenous Peoples and indicators in El Salvador and Panama, FAO published a report with the main outcomes and recommendations of these experiences: Medición de seguridad alimentaria en territorios Indígenas: Casos prácticos: El Salvador y Panamá. In the two countries, Indigenous Peoples and the national statistics institutions worked together with FAO to implement the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) in three territories, one in El Salvador and two in Panama. | Find out more